


There's A Corpse In This Bed.

by cemetery_driven



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcoholism, Apocalypse, M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cemetery_driven/pseuds/cemetery_driven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The zombie apocalypse hits. Gerard is an alcoholic and his boyfriend owns a bar. There's nowhere to go but down, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's A Corpse In This Bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an English assignment. Seriously. I'm just going to forewarn now for overuse of obvious MCR/Leathermouth references. I'm sorry. I just like could not help it.

The entire bar is so eerily silent, so different to what it was like every night before the... thing. They still don't know what the hell went wrong, to make them all go like this. Nobody knows, not the government – well, what's left of it, anyway – or the doctors, or anything. Nobody knows. 

 

Gerard feels like death warmed over. He's sitting, alone, in this deserted bar, and there's no sun. There's no sun, no breeze, no chirpy-chirpy birds. Gerard doesn't even know what time it is, what day it is, whatmonth or year it is. He doesn't know if everything's suddenly got better and now everyone's staying far, far away from the bar because there's a weird, pale dude hiding out in there who looks like he might fall down dead any moment.

 

Gerard knows he looks like shit, and he feels it too. He rubs pointlessly at his running nose, squeezes his reddening eyes shut in an attempt to make them stop aching. Everything just really fucking sucks, and he hates it. He hates it all.

 

He wishes he had paint, or maybe those black plastic garbage bags, just so he could cover up the mirrors behind the bar. He hates looking up, seeing his warped reflection – he looks nothing like whoever it was he used to be. His hazel eyes have long since gone tired, almost bruised between red tear-marks. His hair, usually so consistently dyed, has the weird brown of his natural color coming through at the top, looking ridiculous against the jet-black of the rest of his hair. He hasn't seen sun since he doesn't know when, and it shows – his skin has the waxy pallor of a complete recluse, dead white, sick looking. Everything about him screams messed up. He almost looks like he had when he'd been using coke, almost. The only thing missing is a bleeding nose, it seems.

 

He runs a hand through his unwashed hair, wincing at the grossness of the grease getting between his fingers and wiping them on equally dirty jeans. He sniffs again, and picks up the bottle of old Smirnoff, bringing the glass bottle to his lips and downing the biggest gulp he possibly can.

 

Gerard really doesn't see why he should keep on the twelve-step program after all that's gone down. He thinks that all this shit is an incredibly valid excuse for falling off the wagon.

 

Before the thing, Gerard had never set foot in this bar. Never. He should have, should have done exactly as Frank asked every time they kissed goodbye through the window of a taxi cab after a date, should have gone upstairs and seen Frank's apartment, gone inside, seen the bar that was his boyfriend's goddamn child. 

 

Frank had inherited the place from an uncle, and back when he'd first got it, it was a tiny dive bar with a few regulars at best and ran under the name  _Christian's._ It was given a new life, a future, everything, when Frank settled into ownership, changed the name, and got a badass lineup of local punk bands to play opening night. So Gerard had been told, of course, over and over again. Frank lived above the bar, in a studio-style apartment, where he'd been since before his uncle had handed the whole place over.

 

Frank and  _Monroeville_ just were these two things that never left each others' sides. _Monroeville_ was Frank's baby, his love, his livelihood. It was his pride and fucking joy and Gerard was too much of a selfish goddamn prick to see it in it's prime.

 

Frank had always insisted that it was okay, that he totally understood that Gerard didn't want to be in there, with sweaty bodies and flowing liquor. He'd always said it was fine, no, really. Gerard saw that little light that went out behind Frank's green-green eyes though, every time his request was met with an excuse, a _no, Frank, I really can't._

 

Gerard was a terrible boyfriend, even before the thing happened. When it happened, he guessed it only made him worse.

 

Gerard doesn't remember much about that morning, it seems to have escaped his permanent memory. He remembers little snippets, the feelings. Nothing else, really. He remembers an urgency, a tug in his gut, his whole mind screaming out _you've got to get to Frank right now you goddamn piece of shit_ and it's like that's literally all there was. Everything else is smudged paint on a canvas, a blurred mess.

 

Gerard had seen people die, when he drove the ten minute drive to _Monroeville._ He saw a woman, chased from her house by her ravenous husband, scream as she fell to the small patch of grass outside her house. He saw her crumble into a useless heap, saw the person she probably trusted with her own life, tear out the flesh of her side with bare teeth and hands.

 

He remembers more, after that. It's like up until that point in his little journal, in the running commentary his mind kept, someone spilled coffee and ruined the manuscripts from everything before it. 

 

Gerard had nearly taken out a security post with the way he swerved into the loading bay behind _Monroeville_. The parking lot was relatively empty, but Gerard sure as hell wasn't placing bets at that point on which _ones_ had stopped tailing his car. It was like they went for anything that moved, that even appeared to be capable of control. Maybe they threw themselves at the car because it just plowed down the street at forty mile an hour, or maybe it was because they could sense that something more was behind the wheel, pressing down on the gas pedal.

 

He couldn't get any closer to the back door of the bar if he tried. He had no choice, no goddamn choice in the world, but to get out and piss-bolt as fast as humanly possible to the back door, and pray that Frank had left it unlocked.

 

Frank must have seen his car, he had to have. Gerard couldn't think of any other reason why Frank would come running out of his safe-haven, Gerard still can't think of any reasons. Gerard thinks Frank is an absolute fucking idiot for doing it, even now. 

 

Frank had just thrown the back door open and come streaking across the space between it and the car Gerard was still in. He hadn't seen the fucking things come round the corner, not many, just a few, but more than enough. He'd fucking turned around when Gerard kicked the car door open and screamed some warning of _Frank they're behind you goddamnit!_

 

Gerard watched him like he was in some catatonic state. He just stood there, mindless, watching as Frank fired a goddamn shotgun at the things, whatever they were. 

 

Frank had had to physically grab Gerard's arm and pull him in the direction of the door, firing the shotgun single-handed. They were so fucking _close_ to the goddamn bar, to inside where the bastard things couldn't get them, couldn't hurt them, couldn't see or hear or smell them. Frank shoved Gerard in the direction of the door, turning his back to his boyfriend and his shotgun at the things.

 

_Save yourself, I'll hold them back._

 

Gerard managed to get the back door open, after what felt like hours or days of physically beating himself against the goddamn piece of shit. He held it open with a foot, screaming for Frank to  _get the fuck back in here you asshole_ , until he managed to lean out just far enough to grab Frank's jacket by the tips of his fingers, gain purchase, and pull his boyfriend into the safety of the building with a final shattering scream and shotgun blast.

 

Gerard throws back another mouthful of vodka, the taste like acetone, burning its way down his throat. It hurts, it makes his eyes water even worse, but at the same time, he can feel it starting to work like ether, coaxing him slowly into a state where consciousness isn't an issue.

 

When they'd realized the unholy bite on Frank's left bicep, Gerard had shit himself. He dragged Frank through the manager's office, up the stairs and into the apartment, almost thrown his boyfriend on the couch as he dashed to the bathroom to rifle through the medicine cabinet. 

 

He smashed the glass on the sink that held Frank's toothbrush, knocked half his daily toiletries to the floor, stepped on the tube of toothpaste and sent it squirting across the room with a disgusting squelch. It felt like hours before he found the rubbing alcohol and some gauze and bandages.

 

When he got back to Frank, still on the couch, a shirt that had been lazily thrown to the floor clenched against his wounded arm, he had to stop. Breathe a minute. This was too fucking much, this world was asking way too much of him right now, this shit was ridiculous. 

 

He sat down next to his boyfriend, made hushing sounds as he pried Frank's hands off the shirt, the shirt off the bite. _Come on, Frankie, it'll be okay, I promise. I've gotta see it, okay, I have to clean it out and make sure there's nothing in there, or it's gonna be worse. Come on, Frankie._

 

Frank's jacket was a lost cause. It took forever to get the stupid thing off, to get the heavy, worn leather over the bleeding bite without making Frank grind his teeth or scream. It kept getting caught, then free, then caught again and just when Gerard got it on the right godforsaken angle to get it over the goddamn wound his fingers would slip from sweaty hands against leather, and it'd be back to square one.

 

Once the jacket was off, Gerard gave Frank a cushion from the couch to bite into, because he knew this next part was going to hurt like a bitch.

 

Gerard poked the surrounding skin, making sure nothing was inside the wound itself. Frank would need stitches, Gerard knew he would, but right now he so happened to be fresh out of sterile needles and thread, and he wasn't exactly qualified in the art of creating Frankensteins. If there was something left inside the bite they'd need tweezers or scissors or fucking hell Gerard didn't know how to perform minor surgery, he didn't know what they'd need if something was in there. When he was satisfied there was no dirt, no gravel, brick, dust, _teeth_ , embedded in Frank's arm, he opened up the rubbing alcohol.

 

“Fuck, Gerard, no, come on, please-”

 

Gerard muttered soft shushes again, trying his utmost to keep his head as cool and calm as possible, because if he panicked he knew Frank would get worse, which would mean he wouldn't be able to clean it out, it would get all gross and green and infected, which would end up with the need for a goddamn  _Requiem for a Dream_ sequence without the trained surgical team.

 

Gerard waited for Frank to take a few breaths, swallow, bite back into the couch cushion, before he splashed the alcohol over Frank's arm.

 

Frank's scream was muffled, but Gerard could see the heaving in his chest and the shiny-bright tears falling down his face, silvery snail-trails running lines across his cheeks in their wake. 

 

A few more quick splashes, and Gerard  _had_ to be done. He couldn't do it anymore. Not anymore. Frank was a shaking, shuddering mess by that point, every breath rattling through his ribcage.

 

He unwrapped one of the gauze pads, got Frank to hold it in place as he wrapped a pressure bandage around it and tied it off. A makeshift sling would likely be a good idea, Gerard thought briefly, but after he looked in Frank's eyes one more time he realized no, no, that's enough pain for now. If Frank wanted it slinged up, Gerard would do so. But not now, not when Frank's face was bright red and soaked through, shaking from his head to his feet.

 

It had taken Frank three days before he started getting sick.

 

At first, it was just like any time Frank had been sick before. Gerard had seen him sick before, seen him lying in a hospital bed with a horrifying IV drip in his arm when he came down with pneumonia and had been stuck in the bleach-white institution for a week. All of a sudden, though, that bout of pneumonia felt like a walk in the goddamn park.

 

Gerard takes another swig out of the bottle of vodka. He hates this part of remembering most of all. This is the worst part, the scene in the movie he wants to close his eyes and block his ears to, pretend it doesn't exist. He wishes it was as simple as just pressing the skip-chapter button and continuing on, but it doesn't. It doesn't work like that because his life isn't a DVD in a player, he isn't a character in some shitty, grindhouse horror flick. He's an actual person, a person in a real world – he's in Belleville, New Jersey, not Gotham City or Smallville. He's not a superhero, as much as he wishes he was.

 

Gerard slides off the barstool, slightly off-balance when his feet hit the ground. He's gotta make sure this place is still all locked up, make sure there aren't any weak spots. He knows there's none, Frank made sure there weren't any, but it feels as if these mindless checks are the only thing he has to do anymore. All Gerard can do anymore is stagger sloppily around the wooden floor of the bar, bottle of vodka in one hand, touching the walls like some deranged  _thing_ to make sure nothing will come leaping out and rip his face off.

 

Frank had succumbed like nobody's business. Once the sickness got hold of him, it just got worse, quicker. Gerard had shoved pills down his lover's throat, made warm soup from the packets Frank had in the kitchen cupboard, made him sit up and drink down as many glasses of water as he possibly could. It was like taking care of a kid with a horrible flu or a particularly nasty cold – until Frank started throwing up everything that went in his mouth.

 

The vomiting and nausea and even, to an extent, the complete and total lethargy... Gerard knew he could handle that shit. It was a goddamn flu bug that had started on Frank's stomach, he was sure. It was when Frank started throwing up when he hadn't had anything, when he started heaving up bright green gunk, that Gerard started to worry. When that green turned the gross red of blood within mere hours, and Frank started crying, Gerard really knew he was in too fucking deep.

 

_We need a doctor,_ he thought, holding Frank in his arms, sitting on the bathroom floor. Frank groaned loudly in pain and lurched back over the toilet, staining the white porcelain red and pink with regurgitated blood.

 

That night, Frank had gone still as Gerard laid next to him on the bathroom floor, their heads on Frank's pillows, bodies pressed against each other for warmth. Gerard remembers how he'd jerked awake, from a weird dream or a noise or something, and then he'd seen the sudden stop in the rise and fall of Frank's chest.

 

He'd broken. It felt like days that he stayed with Frank, his skin suddenly colder than natural, with arms wrapped around him, the bloody stains from Frank's shirt rubbing off on Gerard's hoodie sleeve. He pulled Frank's – he shudders at the thought of  _body_ , it's Frank, it's Frank – up, settled them both against the wall. It's like they used to sit in college, when they'd met, sitting up against the wall nestled in together, exchanging body heat on the coldest winter days.

 

When Gerard finally dragged himself up off the tiles of Frank's bathroom floor for a glass of water, he heard movement. It started as a twitch, a miniscule little twitch that could have been Gerard's mind playing tricks, and then it got louder. It became more solid, there was more movement, what was once the barely-noticeable millimeter-shift of a pinky finger became a swooping arm, became a rise from the floor to standing height, became lunging straight at Gerard like there was a bus coming and Gerard was in the middle of the road.

 

Gerard had bolted for the door leading downstairs, to the bar.  _Frank come on, this isn't you, stop playing stupid you fuckwit, this isn't funny, I am really not laughing, seriously, you need to stop-_

 

Gerard had had to barricade the door at the top of the stairs, first with the lock in the handle, then with the chair from Frank's office, then from a couple more chairs he beat against a corner in the wall until the legs broke off and some nails from the little handyman-kit behind the bar. 

 

All night long, Gerard had heard the vicious banging of the man he loved throwing himself at everything, anything. Frank had gone, he'd gone completely... Gerard didn't even know how to describe it. It's not craziness, not schizo, not insanity or anything. It's not mental. It's anti-mental, completely mindless, totally and utterly focused on, Gerard assumes now, life. 

 

It's been a week now, since Frank... became one of  _them._ Gerard still doesn't know what they are. He doesn't know if anyone out in the wide wide world knows. For days, the slamming, banging, crashing, the soundtrack to the complete destruction going on upstairs, had been relentless. Gerard had picked up one of the colorful glass bottles from under the bar the night Frank had become one of  _them_ , in an attempt to drink the guilt and noise and pain and world out. His only breaks from the booze are when he's passed out, now. He can't do it. He  _cannot fucking do it._

 

The self-destruction soundtrack stopped this morning. Gerard has drunk more today than he has in the entire time he's known Frank. He's half-sure he hasn't been this intoxicated since the last time he snorted cocaine.

 

_We need a doctor? A fucking doctor_ , Gerard thinks dully with a humorless snort.  _A doctor wouldn't have done anything._ A doctor probably wouldn't have known, anyway. Gerard was all Frank had, the only source of anything, and Gerard had so completely and utterly failed him. Failed everything.

 

Gerard nearly trips over his own feet as he shuffles back to the bar, arms outstretched as he leans across the countertop and fishes out one of the packs of cigarettes from the shelves underneath it. He opens the pack and lights one up, sinking back into his rounds of the bar, the trail of grayish smoke hanging in the still air behind him.

 

He's so tired, so exhausted, so deprived and alone and starving. Starving, not for food, but for  _life._ He wants life again.


End file.
